I am 13 years old, and I come from the Isinay Tribe of Dupax del Sur. Our Ilocano roots run deep in these mountains, forests, and farmlands. They are the heart of who we are. But if mining continues here, our home will never be the same again.

If we allow the miners to keep digging, the green forests where we once played will turn into pits of mud and stone. The rivers that give us water will run brown and toxic. The fields where our parents plant rice and vegetables will dry up, cracked and lifeless. The birds, deer, and rare animals that live here, protected by the law under will vanish, one by one, until all that remains are their names in books.

If we do nothing, the songs of our ancestors will fade beneath the sound of heavy machines. The air will grow thick with dust, and the land that once gave life will become silent. We, the Isinay children, will grow up not knowing what it feels like to walk beneath tall trees or hear the river sing. We will inherit a place stripped of its spirit,  a land that no longer remembers us.

The Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act exists to prevent this kind of destruction. It is meant to protect the plants and animals that make Dupax so special. But laws will mean nothing if we stay quiet while mining companies turn our ancestral land into waste.

If mining is allowed to continue, the balance that our ancestors cared for will be lost forever. No amount of money or promises can bring back what has been destroyed. The Isinay people have always lived in harmony with nature, taking care of the land so it could take care of us. That is how we have survived and how we must continue.

I ask everyone who reads this: please help us stop the mining now, before it’s too late. Stand with us, the young Isinay generation, who still believe in a green and living Dupax. Sign this petition not only for us, but for the children who will come after us, so they will have forests to explore, clean rivers to swim in, and stories to tell about how we protected the land that protected us.